Union leader and labor organizer Cesar Chavez dedicated his life to improving treatment, pay and working conditions for farm workers.

Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights

While Brown v. Board of Education remains much more famous, Mendez v. Westminster School District (1947) was actually the first case in which segregation in education was successfully challenged in federal court. Finally giving Mendez its due, Philippa Strum provides a concise and compelling account of its legal issues and legacy, while retaining its essential human face: that of Mexican Americans unwilling to accept second-class citizenship.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/mendez-v-westminster

Ultimately, Mendez highlights how Mexican Americans took the lead to secure their civil rights and demonstrates how organization, courage, and persistence in the Mexican-American communities could overcome the racism of the school boards.

The Bracero Program
http://www.farmworkers.org/bracerop.html

An executive order called the Mexican Farm Labor Program established the Bracero Program in 1942. This series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts.

UFW co-founders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, 1968.

Student Movement Embraces ‘Aztlán’

The Aztec 'Codex Azcatitlan,' written between the mid-16th and 17th centuries, detailing the history of the Mexica from their migration from Aztlán to the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Christianization.

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

https://ufw.org/about-us/our-vision/

http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history/07.html

https://doloreshuerta.org/doloreshuerta/

Dolores Huerta

UFW Successes Through the Years

https://ufw.org/ufw-successes-years/

The first genuine collective bargaining agreement between farm workers and growers in the history of the continental United States, beginning with the union contract signed with Schenley vineyards in 1966.
The first union contracts requiring rest periods, toilets in the fields, clean drinking water, hand washing facilities, protective clothing against pesticide exposure, banning pesticide straying while workers are in the fields, outlawing DDT and other dangerous pesticides, lengthening pesticide re-entry periods beyond state and federal standards, and requiring the testing of farm workers on a regular basis to monitor for pesticide exposure.
The first union contracts eliminating farm labor contractors and guaranteeing farm workers seniority rights and job security.
Establishing the first comprehensive union health benefits for farm workers and their families through the UFW’s Robert F. Kennedy Medical Plan.
The first and only functioning pension plan for retired farm workers, the Juan de la Cruz Pension Plan.
The first functioning credit union for farm workers.
The first union contracts regulating safety and sanitary conditions in farm labor camps, banning discrimination in employment and sexual harassment of women workers.
The first union contracts providing for profit sharing and parental leave.
Abolishing the infamous short¡©handled hoe that crippled generations of farm workers and extending to farm workers state coverage under unemployment, disability and workers’ compensation, as well as amnesty rights for immigrants and public assistance for farm workers.

https://www.history.com/news/chicano-movement

https://www.pbs.org/video/chicano-rights-movement-y13qkx/